True Blood : "9 Crimes"Review

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Sookie Stackhouse, Suicide Girl.

By Matt Fowler

"9 Crimes" gave me the feeling that things were moving along, but not any clue as to where. It's a tricky sensation. Still, I do find myself a lot more interested in Bill now that he's not Sookie's beau, and I've discovered that many of the characters in the series are benefiting from this onslaught of mysterious motives; Bill, Russell and James Frain's Franklin are totally fun to watch simply because we don't know how to feel about them. Also, they're all fairly polite, which always creates a captivating dichotomy when it comes to murderous vampires.

If Bill is really undercover, then he's reallly undercover. I mean, so undercover that it almost makes him a total badass. He even gave poor Sookie the "we f@#$ed like only two vampires can" speech. And we still don't know why Bill would be undercover because we don't exactly know what Bill suspects Russell might be up to. He's either concerned about his Queen, or he wants to help Russell take over her territory. Or maybe he really has "fallen in" with Russell and believes the whole "I will only bring you suffering" spiel. The scene between Bill and the young doomed stripper - with her confessing the depressing abyss that is her life and that awesome Massive Attack song playing in the background - was a meditative display of how this series, when it's not got its tongue planted too firmly in its own cheek, can really tap into something poetically morbid. It was a great moment.

King Russell made the claim, to a bar full of followers, that he's had this "V" pact with the branded wolves for ages. But what is he up to? And please tell me he's got more wolves than are in that one bar. It has been ages after all. He's got to have more than that lot of junkie bikers. I don't know what they plan on doing, but wouldn't Coot remember that Alcide was in the bar? With Sookie? Okay, he might not have recognized Sookie with her new Hot Topic/Emily the Strange look, but he knew there was a stranger there, right? Some Suicide Girl that probably shouldn't be let in on the King's plan. Hmmm. I'll just chalk that one up to Coot being a dumb hick and not to sloppy plotting.

I still don't feel any "heat" between Sookie and Alcide. And it's not for Anna Paquin's lack of trying. She's always giving her all to her performance, whether she's got great or goofy things to say. It's just that, well, we're supposed to feel a certain "will they?/won't they?" thing between those two and they just haven't spent that much time together. Even before Bill called her to give her the "we're through" speech, she was flirting with Alcide while dressing his wound. It just came off as unnatural. And not as in "the love between a woman and a wolf" unnatural. Their bond definitely felt more real after Sookie got dumped since the two of them could wallow in a shared misery, but Alcide still doesn't pop off the screen like Sookie's vampire suitors do. It's also hard to truly sympathize with Alcide since our first introduction to Debbie is as a skanky smeared make-up, V addict. "I don't need your p***y pack!" she snarls. Hell, I'd leave her to rot.

Elsewhere, Eric, out of desperation, has framed Bill and named him as the V-selling traitor to the Magister. I don't know who exactly is going to suffer punishment in the end, but I do know that both Russell and Sophie-Ann's crimes are equally offensive/blasphemous. By the way...Sophie-Ann owes the IRS? Bwahahahahahaha! That's rich. This whole thing is about back-taxes. I enjoy Eric's relationship with Lafayette probably more than any other pairing on the entire series. There's something about how dry Eric is and how animated and crass Lafayette is that makes me want to see them take their act on the road.

It was strange seeing Tara actually enter deep into the world of vampires. Her relationship with her "boyfriend by force" Franklin has certainly made her more interesting, and it was nice to hear her mention her previous love for Jason. Meanwhile, Jason is blackmailing Andy to get a job as a Bon Temps deputy and Arlene is going nuts because of her pregnancy hormones. I'm still waiting for Sam's family, or at least Tommy, to fully turn villainous. Right now, they're just toying with him. I did like Arlene's observation about how Sam "takes in every stray." Jessica's got a new night job at Merlotte's, for which she calls upon her previous friendly customer service skills as a hostess. "I'm a vampire, not a f@#$ing idiot!," she insists. Sometimes this show also surprises you with things that you simply hadn't noticed before. Jessica has not been out in public all that much, so it didn't even occur to me that someone could recognize her.

In the end though, we still don't know what anyone is really up to. Was Bill trying to send Sookie a code? Or warn her? Or does he really want her to stay away? He's basically murdering people now. Sure, they might be desolate pole-dancers with no love in their life, but it's still a high crime for a man who's been a "hero" on the show. I did like how he power-punched Lorena goodnight though. BILL SMASH!!

"A woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke." Yes, it's Rudyard Kipling, but everything sounds better when Russell says it.

By the way, Jason's choice to blackmail Andy for a job wasn't the dumbest thing he's ever done, but it's close! Check out our feature Jason Stackhouse's Dumbest Moments and re-live the stupid.